The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams Hardcover – October 25, 2022

Historian Stacy Schiff makes a compelling argument (well-researched with lots of footnotes -- that themselves are fascinating) that Adams was the driving force behind the American Revolution. With vivid prose, Schiff paints a portrait of a man devoted to moral righteousness and impervious to wealth and power, yet who ruthlessly used misinformation to whip up public sentiment against the British. Adams presaged techniques now commonplace to distort facts and push towards the revolution. Well-known incidents leading to the revolution are shown in new ways -- the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre are both fascinating when Samuel Adams' influence is shown. Schiff offers insights into how Adams' conflicting traits and pivotal role in inflaming rebellion through his inflammatory rhetoric make for an absorbing narrative. Her lively accounts of mob violence and key revolutionary figures like John Hancock and Thomas Hutchinson further illuminate a historical figure that many people have heard of but whose actions have been hidden in the fog of history. The fact that I learned a lot and enjoyed the journey resulted in me giving this book five stars.

After viewing a television interview with the author, I was inclined to obtain this famous biography for further insight into Samuel Adams life, which I thought I was familiar. Unlike the image of a man on the famous beer company bottle, which is really Paul Revere, I obtained a good view of his image on the front cover and a photo of a painting midway into the book.Conversely, I was amazed viewing the back cover where there was a quote by the great American author, David McCullough as to Stacy Schiff’s superior writing style which after reading this work, I cannot agree. Initially, I found the prose, sentence structure, and word selection distracting from obtaining the full meaning of the story. Who uses words like obstreperous and abstemious? Although I felt her information interesting, this, unlike Martin Dugard, she does not place the reader in the times, the reader has to struggle to get there!Schiff provides a fascinating and interesting view into the United States pre-revolutionary life in Boston and the colonies. The reader is exposed to the volatile nature of the populous during this period coupled with the political quagmire of this period between the citizenry and the mother country that led to a new nation. The read acquires a critical view of the founding father’s personal lives which is not common knowledge.The reader will fully appreciate the impact of the British Stamp Act, the following Townsend Act, the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea party, Coercive Acts, Port Act, Lexington and Breed’s Hill which led up to the American Revolution. The author portrays British Governor of Massachusetts prior and during these events, Francis Bernard’s character, to be similar to present day authoritarian governance where the citizen is victimized by its own government.The book is sturdy and well edited. The work is well structured and organized into thirteen chapters, an extensive reference section, useful photographs, and helpful index. Due to the many characters in the text a glossary of persons would be very helpful for the consumer. This would assist in understanding the Massachusetts period government.

Most people today probably know Sam Adams as a brewer. He was one but not a very good one. At least, he ran the business created by his father into the ground. But Sam Adams was perhaps more responsible for the Revolution than anyone else. Adams was devoted to liberty. When England, which had generally given the colonies free rein to create democratic institutions, decided to take more control, Adams was the opposition. " Taxation without representation" were fighting words to Adams.Adams used every means at his disposal to fight. Mostly he used the press. At times, he was not constrained by the truth. As today, that was not unusual. He also arranged for mobs and violence. But not only did he convince Boston and Massachusetts to support the Revolution, he was perhaps primarily responsible for convincing all the colonies. His articles were reprinted everywhere.His master stroke was creating committees of correspondence throughout the colonies that kept each other informed of every English slight to liberty. This resulted in people seeing the colonies as linked together in opposition to England. Without this there would be no Revolution.The Revolutionary is an excellent biography that will hopefully begin a new appraisal of Sam Adams.

A pleasure to read and hard to put down... written so well that one can visualize the scenarios. One of the better biographies on an often forgotten and certainly unrecognized and under appreciated Founding Father